Arsenal @ 7/5
Liverpool @ 19/10
Draw @ 12/5
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It’s all getting rather serious now. Premier League wins and losses are starting to carry a far greater heft. Defeats can longer be casually brushed away like dry, autumn leaves…or 115 FFP charges.
The heavyweight fixture of Gameweek 9 – a big screen action blockbuster – sees Arsenal host Liverpool in a 4:30pm kick-off on Sunday.
Liverpool are very much in the hunt to turn October a vibrant shade of Anfield red. It has been their month and their season, so far. Impactful stats keep hitting us like nuclear torpedoes.
The 2024/25 rodeo, for example, is now the first time in the club’s entire, long history that they have won 11 of their opening 12 matches. Liverpool have also never before posted six successive away wins to commence a campaign.
It has been their month and their season, so far. Impactful stats keep hitting us like nuclear torpedoes.
Going into last week’s round of fixtures, much was made of the relatively benign opening barrage of games they had to face. But then Liverpool withheld the advances of a newly robust and weaponised Chelsea unit.
And on Wednesday night, away in the Champions League, they won against RB Leipzig – who are level on points at the top of the Bundesliga – to help maintain their 100% record in that competition.
The Merseyside mob have beaten the ‘easy’ teams – with Nottingham Forrest now looking an increasingly anomalous exception – and they are beating the ‘hard’ ones too. Can they continue this impressive trajectory by beating the hardest yet – Arsenal – in their own back yard?
The last time they attempted to do this, in February this year, Liverpool succumbed to a damaging 3-1 defeat characterised by ill-discipline and an hilarious ‘Keystone Klopps’ defensive calamity.
But such items have been removed from the menu in recent weeks for The Reds: 7 clean sheets have already been hung on this season’s washing line; just 5 goals have been conceded so far; and the increasingly familiar Van Dyke/Konate centre-back axis is beginning to acquire an aura of invincibility.
Ill-discipline, conversely, has quickly become a hallmark of this weekend’s opponents. Too many rogue officers have been seeing red this October for Arsenal; making three in total so far this season – which does, at least, put them at the top of one Premier League statistics table.
Curiously, Mikel Arteta has decided not to make it a big issue of this within his squad. Perhaps because he knows that he is absolutely the last person to give advice and direction in how to best control one’s composure when under pressure. Whatever the reason, key cog, William Saliba, will be unavailable for selection due to suspension.
An unilluminating performance in midweek against Shakhtar Donetsk did little to boost the collective confidence heading into this weekend’s increasingly important clash. And further Gunner gloom was created by an injury to new-signing Riccardo Calafiori, who will now join Bukayo Saka as another vital player who will likely be absent on Sunday.
Are too many players currently lost at sea for Arsenal? Are they already facing the possibility of being submerged at this early stage of the title race?
Arteta is becoming a general under pressure, then; one facing a clear and present danger. Is the red tide of momentum now flowing in favour of Liverpool? A win over Arsenal and they will finish the month at the top of the table – rubber-stamping the belief that they are very much in the hunt for Premier League glory in the process.
Or, assuming Manchester City win their home tie against Southampton on Saturday, will the red October we are currently experiencing, at the conclusion of this weekend’s action, be quickly transformed into a very familiar (sky) blue Monday?
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